Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/173

 Father d'Astier, because he does not understand the world. He is too simple.)

Fulco spoke in a weak voice, rather too high-pitched and a little grating. "I have been to the Palazzo Gonfarini praying there. There was a great crowd of devout. Surely the Holy Virgin has vouchsafed a miracle in your own house."

How round-eyed he was and how credulous, how exactly like her! Father d'Astier tried to be firm and kind.

"It is true, Fulco, that the woman died in my house, but that means nothing. You must not hope for vain things, Fulco. Nothing is known of her. People always come like that to seek relics the minute anything strange occurs. People want to believe in miracles, and among the poor, relics are valuable. The poor can turn them into money."

It was odd that he found himself speaking to this man of forty as if he were a child. It was odd and revolting.

"She was a good woman, Father d'Astier. A religieuse. She came daily for years to worship the pictures of Saint John the Shepherd. I have seen her there day after day with my own eyes. The very doves in the Piazza loved her, and the little birds sat by her when she was dying. Sister Annunziata swears to that. And the janitress. I saw them too, but you need not take my word; there is the word of the others."

Father d'Astier interrupted him. "The janitress is infidel and anti-clerical and Socialist. She is malicious and intelligent. We cannot take her word. Besides, saints are not made like that. We do not